Aspetto Te
by Swamy
Summary: Post 6x09 (pre-romance) Bonnie waits for him to take her away. Damon waits for her to come back. [cover by alla-matta]


**Note:** This fiction is dedicated to **roplusglam**, the little devil on my shoulder. The songs I used are "_Is this happiness_?" by Lana Del Rey and "_All I want_" by Kodaline. The title means "I wait for you" (I could change it later on). The movie "The Deer Hunter" is a movie about war and the physical and mental trauma that follow.

#

Bonnie stays put, like a good girl, because Damon told her to be there, and she remains there, for hours. She sees the subtle changing in the sky, going from black to blue and then pink. She falls asleep on the front porch, curled up on the first step, against the railing, chilled to the bottom of her soul, the idea of moving doesn't even touch her, because Damon told her to be there.

The piece of paper with his handwriting is safely folded in the pocket of her shorts, weighting her down, chaining her to the front porch of the Gilbert's house.

The night passes, and the morning too, and in the late afternoon the rambling of her stomach has become like a voice in the background. She misses voices so she listens carefully.

It takes her two days to have the strength to stand up again and walk back to the Salvatore house.

She bathes, changes her clothes, makes herself pancakes and leaves with nothing but a marker pen to go back on the front porch and wait.

She waits every day, from the morning until her eyes start burning; then she goes back to the house and sleeps restlessly in Damon's bed. He would tease her endlessly if he knew, but she can't tell herself that maybe he never will. Because it's been days, and the marker pen has dried, and she had to change it to another color.

Sometimes she catches the reflection of her body in the mirror and she's surprised to see herself so thin, even if she doesn't ingest much more than pancakes and grapes. Pork rings sometimes, because they've grown on Damon and it seems only fair to shop for something he can enjoy too.

At night, inside his bed, she turns to see his silhouette in the dark. He's lying on his back, eyes open on the ceiling, so intent, with his grinning mouth, like he's seeing something very amusing.

"Will you come and get me?" she asks with the faintest voice. She doesn't even whimper as a tear rolls down on her cheek because she's scared she won't hear his answer.

He never does.

#

She's thin, thin, thin, so much so he thinks that if he touches her now her bones are going to be powdered. But still, she's there. That alone should be enough. She's there, asleep three steps away from him on the swing, and there's nothing between them. Nothing that will stop him from bringing her back where she is supposed to be.

Nothing but her calligraphy on the wooden floor of the front porch, in red and blue and black. The words start with big letters, but they turn smaller and smaller.

_I'm waiting_, it says, _where are you? _It asks _Where the fuck are you? _The swearing is almost comforting, because at least she got mad, at least she knows what to demand of him_. I'm hungry, will you bring a snack when you come back? No pork rinds. Pork rinds are absolutely forbidden. _He almost chuckles as his insides twists slowly. _I am so going to kill you, you ungrateful ass_. The last two letters are smeared a bit, he wonders if she cried while she was writing that message for him. His heart sinks, only a little bit. _I lost your car, well, actually Kai stole it after stabbing me. I think that count as foreplay for him, maybe I should be flattered but I'm really not. The point is I lost your car. I'm so sorry, just come back and be a pain about it, okay?_

Damon has to look elsewhere for a moment and blink a stupid tear away. He's not going to cry. It's not his thing.

_I can't get the pancakes right, the smile keeps falling off , _she informs him with a blue marker, _if you would at least answer sometimes. _He begins getting confused here. Her handwriting is not clear as her usual and maybe he didn't get it right. _I think he did something to the mirrors. I can't see my face. How is my make up? _She's holding her knees, sometimes she jerks for no reason and he just stands there and watches. The words will pull him down like shifting sand if he tries and reach to her.

_One gun on the table__  
__Headshot if you're able_

Damon calls her name, "Bonnie," but even if her lashes flutter she doesn't even bother looking up. Her eyes close again, tired. He's walking up to her before he even realizes what he's doing. He takes her by the shoulders, forces her to sit up, look up, "Bonnie, let's go home," he tells her. She seems rather confused but she doesn't protest when he pulls her up, when he drags her away. He explains how he found her, how Kai died, he explains that everyone is waiting for her. She never says a word.

Behind them, on the front porch, her tiny calligraphy says _I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting._

_Is this happiness?__  
__Is this happiness?__  
__Is this happiness?__  
__Is this happiness?_

#

The room fills up with voices. The only food in the house is the leftover turkey in freezer they had on Thanksgiving, so they warm it up in the microwave. Matt is happy to go grocery shopping so that she'll have something better in the morning. Elena is all smiles and hugs – never reciprocated - saying she's so happy to have her best friend back and how she felt alone and how she missed her.

Damon thinks Elena doesn't know _alone_, mostly because Bonnie always made sure she never was but he keeps his mouth shut and his eyes on the girl that has kept him with her when she had no reason to think he would ever come back.

Bonnie says a word here and there. Sometimes it doesn't even seem related at all to what they're saying, but she's tired, he likes to think. She's tired and tomorrow she will be fine again. Elena goes to prepare her a hot bath, and Stefan moves so slowly around her like he's trying to not scare her away. It's not like she is eager to see they are there at all.

She holds the knife so tight that her knuckles go white, cuts the meat in pieces so small he's surprised she can pick them up with the fork. She chews her food longer than she needs to, and never looks up at him.

Damon feels like throwing up.

#

"What do you say we have a poker match? Huh?" he hears Matt's voice, his tone a bit too edgy, too anxious for Damon to feel at ease as he walks inside the kitchen to find the blonde boy walking on eggshells, hanging by Bonnie's lips.

She looks at her hands, clenches her fists, stares again at the open palms.

"Come on, let's see if I can beat you this time," Matt tries to take one hand into his but it slips away so easily it seems like he's trying to hold onto a ghost.

"She's been staring at her hands since I found her at the table this morning," Elena explains walking up to him.

"I don't think she had any sleep last night," she adds as he notices the dark circles under her eyes. "I'm worried for her. I can't see her like this."

Something inside him snaps that very moment. He can't think straight, doesn't even know why he is so angry all of a sudden. Damon walks up to Matt, takes the deck of cards from Matt's hand and throws them in her face.

"What the hell are you doing, man?" Matt asks.

Her hands come up to cover her face and it almost makes him feel triumphant.

"Damon, stop it," Elena comes to the rescue shielding Bonnie with her own body, making it impossible for him to see her face.

"I won't let you take your frustration out on her!"

"You won't-" he actually chuckles at that, because it's just fucking hilarious. He won't even dignify that of a reply – she would never understand. He takes her by the arm and pulls her away so that he can look at Bonnie. He puts one hand on the flat surface of the table and bends over to meet her at eye level. She looks at him like she's trying to find something.

Whatever it is, he just likes that she's bothering to look.

"What are you doing? What that hell is wrong-" His words get stuck in his mouth and even Matt and Elena stop trying to interfere since it's clear that any fury was just swept away.

He looks at her face - her pretty, tired face - and sees a smeared line in the corner of her right eye, a minuscule stain of mascara over her eyelid, even if it's not a big disaster her makeup is not even and he finds himself asking, "Do you see your face in the mirror?"

She shakes her head, her lips move to form a _no_ but the sound never comes out. At least she's answering to a direct question.

He doesn't know what the fuck that is supposed to mean, why she can't see her face. That's a good thing to see – he thinks – but they can start from there, he supposes.

"Okay," he just says, his hand cupping her cheek, his thumb gently rubbing the skin, to clean the smeared line in the corner of her right eye. "It's okay."

"It's okay," he repeats but her vacant eyes look elsewhere.

#

She stares at him unblinkingly, her eyes wide in surprise. He's quite sure she's holding her breath in front of Jeremy Gilbert and he has to turn his back on the sickening scene that's about to take place.

"Bonnie," the boy's voice is not completely steady, but Damon doesn't hear any genuine emotion. "I'm so glad to see you back. We've missed you."

The temptation to turn around is too great. He needs to look at the boy's face and see it for himself, the absolute, blatant absence of feelings. He had to mix himself with the others, put their relationship on the same level as her relationship with anyone else, like she never died for him, like he hasn't been going around flaunting a sorrow that seems to belong to someone else now.

He sounds like a salesman from your favorite store: _"Thanks, please come again."_

Out of the corner of his eyes he sees her taking a step back. She bumps into the table, throws off a glass that shatters behind her. She doesn't even flinch at that, but keeps on walking backwards until she's with her back against the wall.

"Bonnie, are you-" Jeremy reaches out but Damon is faster. He speaks between his teeth, ten inches from his face, to tell him, "Stay away, you've done enough."

"You're only trying to make it up to her because you were a selfish son of a bitch and left her there." Jeremy replies, trying to harden his face to not show fear. He's not even Elena's boyfriend anymore, he's got one less reason to stop himself from tearing him to shreds.

"The only thing I'm trying to do now is not kill you because I've got more pressing things to do then find a landfill to throw your carcass. Don't make me regret it."

Damon stands there, counting the steps he takes, wishing he had actually acted out all the murdering fantasies piling up on his brain, which is about to explode.

He turns around with a fake grin, "I won't tell you I told you so but actually I told-" His words dry up on his tongue as he sees her slumped body on the pavement. Her hands are bloody because she's fainted and fell on the broken glass.

"Bonnie, witchy, hey," his voice is breathless. He easily picks her up from the floor to carry her up to one of the bedrooms. His first instinct is to shake her, wake her up, but she hasn't slept since she's been back and this might just be one way like another to have her resting.

He takes the first aid kit from a closet in the bathroom – even if it really escapes reason why a vampire would need to keep something like that – and uses the disinfectant and some cotton wool to clean her wounds, one by one. On the palm of her left hand, the side of the right one, her fragile wrist, her right cheek.

He closes the heavy curtains, tucks her in and leaves her to sleep.

#

Bonnie wakes up in the dark, it's a suffocating feeling that closes her throat and burns up her lungs. She can almost feel ashes in her mouth as she drags herself out of the bed, on her medicated hands and then walks barefoot down the stairs, where there's more light. The clock ticks somewhere but she doesn't bother to watch, there's no use knowing what time it is inside a nightmare that can never end.

She stumbles, falls down the stairs but there are only two steps left and so it doesn't hurt so bad. A scraped knee, a bruise in the morning, nothing she can't handle. She handles things, she handles things. It's okay, she handles things.

She feels like crying but she doesn't. She actually concentrates on her breathing because if she starts to panic again she's going to faint and they're gonna find her. The Damon that cares too much, the Jeremy that doesn't love her. Her mind has conjured them up in this imperfect form, in this almost too real world.

She's tempted to believe, believe everything they say, everything Damon says, but her face is blurry and her hands are numb and sometimes she can't tell if she's inside her body or floating above her own head.

She needs to rest, yes, she needs to rest. She needs to go back home and go to bed, yes. She needs to wait, because Damon told her to wait.

She can barely feel the concrete scraping under her feet as she walks to the Salvatore's house. Maybe this time Damon will answer her.

_#_

The worst is over, somewhere inside he likes to think that. He likes to think Bonnie is one step away from taking back her sanity. She's so strong, how can she not? She survived an arrow in the stomach and a psychopath both in the same day, and proved him wrong over and over (he never told her that he absurdly got a kick out of it), she can make it now, too.

When his cell phone vibrates inside his pocket and he sees the caller ID he smiles lightly. Elena searches for him a lot for someone that doesn't love him anymore.

He presses the phone to his ear as he walks to the door of the house he shares with his brother. The voice on the other side won't even let him speak before saying, "Bonnie… I-I can't find her."

"What?" He freezes on the spot. "What does that mean?" He left her asleep. She was quiet. She was fine. She was _there_.

"I don't know. I found the front door open and she's not in her room. Caroline hasn't seen her and Jeremy-" He doesn't even let her finish.

He wants to ask where the hell _she _was, and why Bonnie was left alone, _again,_ but that would be useless right now.

"I'll look for her. Call me if you find her first." There's no goodbye, no other word but the abrupt sound of the disconnected conversation. Right now, the only words that he could say were words he would have to apologize for later.

He starts the engine of his car trying to come up with something, anything to make him understand where she could have gone. Every member of her family is dead, and one of her best friends shares a house with her, so she had no reason to leave.

He wishes he had listened to what Elena had to say about Jeremy-maybe he knew something important-but just the mention of his name makes his blood boil. The boy is so lucky that Bonnie would be mad if he killed him again.

Okay, _think_.

Half her chances are out of reach because she's a witch, _but _she's powerless now, and if she trespasses he's done, he's out of the game, he can't reach her. He drives around in his car, trying to spot her. What if she's collapsed somewhere? What if someone took her as bait?

The possibilities are endless and his patience is wearing thin. Until he finally sees her…walking barefoot in the middle of the road, a few steps away from crossing the Mystic Falls border.

He speeds up, brakes and jumps out of the car reaching for her wrist but he crashes into the invisible wall around the city and falls back just as she steps inside its confines.

"Bonnie, you can't," he says, panic rising in his throat as he stands and takes an instinctive step towards her only to fall back again with a groan.

She's walking slowly but she's still going. He has no idea what to do and he spits out the first thing that comes to mind. "My car, Bonnie, you lost my car?"

She stands still. He thinks she's possibly considering turning around.

"That's my baby, and you let Kai take it?"

She turns, her eyes a little wider. There's some light inside them, maybe not the fiery spirit he's so used to, but something _alive. _

"I didn't let him, he stole it." It's like she's actually remembering it now. "I was unconscious."

If he pushes her in the right direction she'll start to put pieces back together, he knows. That's what she does best.

"That doesn't sound like a good excuse if you ask me," he says, crossing his arms on his chest, petulant expression firmly on his mouth.

She sulks like a child, looking at him with something akin to irritation. He likes that expression on her.

"I think you should come here and apologize, at least," but she doesn't move, "I mean, it seems like the polite thing to do."

She seems to think about it before taking a step and then another and then another. She's almost there, but then she stops and he realizes he's not breathing.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs, looking at him wary, like she's expecting him to grow a second head any moment.

"I suppose I can let it slide," he says, gently, trying to not scare her away. She doesn't look so happy to be around him but he can't have her anywhere else, _ever_.

_So you brought out the best of me,__  
__A part of me I've never seen._

"Where were you going?" he asks, as he tries to think about something that will make her take just another step. Just one fucking step.

"Home. I have to sleep."

"Your house isn't that way," he ventures, uncertain about what they're talking about, "I can take you wherever you need to go," he suggests.

"I meant… I didn't mean that house," she says, looking away. And it strikes him, right there, in the middle of an empty road, that his home is hers too, because they shared it for four months, and she knows in which closet he puts the coffee, and she knows his cleaning habits, and where he hides his best bottles. It should be disturbing how right that is, how right it is to think of her inside his house, making it home. But it is not.

"I'm really tired," she confesses, her voice so small he feels a bit lost. She's about to leave again.

"Don't," he rushes to say, "Don't go."

"I have to go and wait," she says, her hand slips inside her pocket and she pulls out a piece of paper so carefully he would think is the most precious thing she possesses. And he sees it, his rushed handwriting, his big letters telling her they'd be on the front porch, telling her he was back to take her with him.

_You took my soul and wiped it clean.__  
__Our love was made for movie screens._

It's like someone just kicked him in the stomach, because she believed him and he let her down. And in the middle of a nervous breakdown, stuck between post-traumatic stress disorder and a dissociative disorder (yes, he did some research) she's still believing him.

It's his fault. He should have looked out for her; she did all the work and he didn't even watch her back.

The petty part of him – which is, let's face it, the biggest part of him – would argue that it's entirely her fault, for smiling at him the way she did, when she did. He was not prepared for that. He was almost drunk, for God's sake, and she smiled at him and he just got _confused, _okay? And Kai got to them, and Bonnie waited for him when no one else did_._

She waited for him when _no one else did_.

_But if you loved me__  
__Why'd you leave me?__  
__Take my body,__  
__Take my body._

He's unable to process it, overwhelmed with what he thought as insignificant memories of a semi-boring routine that now seem to take a meaning and a form and space inside his chest and in the middle of his throat, suffocating him. He falters and he needs to take one step back. And she takes one forward to hold the piece of paper in front of him.

It takes him a moment to realize what she just did, and he's fast in holding on to her, cupping her face in his hands. Pulling her just so, that when he speaks his breath touches her face.

"Bonnie, let's go back, huh?" he suggests as gently as he can, but she's absent again, with her eyes lowered on the ground. More than that, she's hiding from him, retreating into her own skin like she's trying to blend in the night and escape a predator.

Years ago it would have flattered him.

"Look at me," he says, but it doesn't reach her. He's tempted to stick his hand into her chest and bring her heart out. "Just, look at me," his hands hold her face harder, against his own will. It scares him, but not enough to let go of her.

"Where are you, Bonnie?" he doesn't even know what he's asking of her, but she seems to understand anyway. Or maybe they've both gone crazy.

She raises her green eyes to him. "I don't know," she says, her voice feeble and afraid, "I don't know, I'm so scared," and her eyes fill up with tears. "Can you please come and get me?" she asks him biting the inside of her mouth.

Damon nods frantically, pulling her against his chest, almost violently so. Her knees go weak and she falls on the concrete - he just follows, down on his knees and straight to hell if he needs to. Bonnie holds onto his shirt with both hands and the little strength left in her battered body. Together they sink in the beam of light from his car and she presses her burning eyes against his chest as he brushes his cheek atop her head.

"Yes," he says, "Yes," he repeats, "Wherever you are, I'm coming for you," he promises while something inside of her melts away and leaves her. And she cries for all the times she has never let herself.

#

He's not going to make the mistake of leaving her alone again so - he thinks as he carries her through the open door - if she needs to sleep she can do that with him just fine. Actually, he's the one that could complain here because he doesn't even make a sound while she, on the other hand, carries on interesting conversations – fragmented, a little absurd, sometimes unintelligible but interesting nonetheless.

Some nights, he wrote it all down only to tease her in the morning. Like the night she demanded, in a childish tone, "Give it to me!" and she insisted during breakfast that she was protesting because in her dream he had stolen her pillow. Nevertheless, "Give it to me" was the only thing he kept saying all day long, whatever it was he was asking for.

Miss Cuddles watches him from a corner of his bedroom as he cleans her naked feet with a wet cloth. "I do not have a foot-fetish so there's no need to stare at me that way," he tells the stuffed bear.

He picked up this weird habit of talking to the stupid thing and he can't wait to drop it. At the beginning, there were things he couldn't say to Stefan, things Elena didn't want to hear, and Miss Cuddles was a convenient ear; but, when Bonnie's fate was revealed or his past with Elena admitted, he still didn't stop talking. Just in case Bonnie would hear. And now he wonders who Bonnie talked to when she was there.

She kicks at him in her sleep and he pulls back falling with his ass on the floor. He almost laughs out loud.

He stands up again, and swipes off dust from his jeans before laying down next to her. He tells himself that she's spent so much time alone that what she probably needs is some human warmth; she's swallowed and ignored and put aside all her fears and now that she's letting go of them she needs some comfort. That seems like a reason selfless enough to get close to her, he thinks. So he does. He gets closer. Not enough to alarm her or disturb her, but enough that he can smell the scent of her skin and the saltiness of dried tears.

He wants to sleep and stop staring at her like a creep, but what if she wakes up and goes off wandering around again? What if this time something happens to her? So he decides – out of pure practical reasons – that the safest course of action is to actually hold her as she sleeps, that way she won't be able to leave without him noticing.

"Okay," he says, trying to slip one arm under her head so that it will serve as a pillow, "Let's do this," he says, more to himself than to her. "Here," he adds, reassuring himself about the fact that he is not crossing any lines, but just looking out for her. "See? This is easy, we can just-" and she rolls into his arm, hiding her face against his chest, slipping her legs through his, shutting him up abruptly and very effectively.

His body is stiff against hers, but he relaxes, following the rhythm of her breathing and actually managing to smile. Her silky hair brushes against his lower lip.

"Bonnie," he whispers, "Let's get awkward," he says, pressing a kiss on the top of her head.

_#_

Her intake of air is a funny sound, and he smiles amused even though he doesn't open his eyes immediately. He can guess the light behind his closed eyelids but the warmth of her body is too nice to give up on it just yet.

"Five minutes, okay?" he asks, hoping she'll stay put. Mind you, she doesn't. She actually tries to slip out of his arms like she can. He's too strong, and she's conveniently starved, and if she tries to slip her legs away she'll rub against something she'd rather not to rub against.

"Damon?" she asks, her voice trembling. She's lucid enough to recognize him, and recognize the absolutely _delicate_ situation she's awakened to. This is too much to pass up and he opens his eyes to enjoy the show.

"The one and only," he sighs. "You were really wild tonight, didn't give me any breaks and I need my beauty sleep. Five minutes, okay?" he asks again.

Slowly her eyes go wide but she has no other reaction, like she's trying to make him believe she has no doubt he's only joking. And yet a tiny, tiny doubt must be there because you can't give _unknown_ to such a cerebral person and don't get her alarmed somehow.

"Why am I in your bed?"

"Because it was my bed or Stefan's, and Stefan didn't spend four months making you breakfast and beating you at Monopoly," he reminds her.

"You cheated," she protests, offering close to no resistance to his arms around her.

"Says who?" he grimaces, faking offence, and she looks at him like it's _obvious_.

"Whatever," he says, closing his eyes again.

"Damon," she says again.

"What now?" he asks, bored. Eyes stubbornly closed.

"If you're the one that needs to sleep, why should I be here, too?" which is not a totally stupid question from her point of view. From his, it's completely idiotic.

"Because I'm not letting you out of my sight until I'm sure you won't pull a _Deer Hunter_ on me. I've already seen your hanging underwear; I think we're intimate enough to not make a fuss about this, now shush."

He can actually hear the loud sound of her thinking, small wheels turning and all. Sleeping doesn't seem an option and he opens his blue eyes on her. She's all stiff and she's hunching her shoulders, trying to retreat away from him. _Cute_.

He smirks, "You're embarrassed," he says, looking at the nice shade of red her cheeks have taken. "Do I have an effect on you?" he asks raising his eyebrows in a suggestive manner. He's missed the shameless teasing.

"Yes, the same kind as food poisoning," she bites, looking away and rolling on the side, so that he can only see her back. Whatever; as long as she doesn't leave.

She can hear him adjusting himself on the pillow and relaxing into the bed, and she remembers. She remembers his frantic voice, the stupid things he made up so that she would walk back to him, his face, his hands, the scent of his clothes and his skin. She slept in his bedroom so many times just to feel comforted by that very same scent.

His arms are stubbornly trapping her and she can feel her heart trembling inside her chest because she's not alone. She's so relieved that her eyes tear up against her will and her sight blurs, but not enough to stop her from reading the words on the wall.

_Sorry for making you wait, there was a bit of traffic. I'm buying you whatever snack you want (the pork rinds are mine). You can kill me but I will consider that foreplay, I will be flattered. As for my car I will even let you drive it, maybe, if you ask me very, very, very (very) nicely. Makeup is not my area of expertise but considering you died twice you're obscenely pretty. If I ever happen to make a move on you I can't be held accountable for my actions._


End file.
